Google has released the first Android 13 Developer Preview, giving the new operating system the go-ahead again in the first half of February – much earlier than expected.
As usual, the first developer preview will be followed by many other versions until the final release will be available in late summer. We show you the preliminary calendar planned versions.
The fact that Google heralds the next generation of Android in February has become established over the past few years. But with the inserted Android 12L, we would have expected a later start.
And so we currently have the situation that there are both Android 12L and Android 13 and Android 12 for Pixel smartphones to choose from. The differences are not serious, but they are three different platforms.
We have already shown you all the important innovations in Android 13 and today we will take a look at how the operating system will continue. The next pre-releases will bring more innovations with them and will also become more stable as the pre-release increases.
It is not recommended to start with the device you use every day right now in the dev phase. Anyone interested in Android 13 should be patient at least until the first beta version.
In the following timeline, to which Google is not necessarily bound and intersperses interim versions from time to time, you can see what is planned for 2022 from an Android 13 perspective. It is noticeable that there is a great hurry this year and that the Android 13 beta will follow directly after Android 12L.
Google has planned a total of seven versions for Android 13 to run through two developer previews, the first of which has already been published, four beta versions and then the final version.
The beta phase will start as early as April this year, just a few weeks after the Android 12L release, which frees up space in the Android Beta Program again. So far, it has not been technically possible for Google to distribute two versions of it at the same time.
What is striking is that platform stability, i.e. the moment from which structural changes are no longer made will be achieved as early as June. Last year it was still August. The final release is expected for August, so also in the planning a little earlier than last year.
The intermediate versions
When is the final version coming?
Every Android pre-release has always been accompanied by two big questions: What’s the name of the version and when will it be released? The first has now been done, because Google has said goodbye to the naming scheme and only names Android by the version number.
However, it is now more openly known than ever that Android 13 is internally named Tiramisu. So the question remains when Android 13 will finally be released. The timeline ends at this point in an unknown future. And it can actually take a relatively long time after the last beta.
The release dates of the five latest Android versions
- Android 11: September 8, 2020
- Android 10: September 3, 2019
- Android 9 Pie: August 6, 2018
- Android 8 Oreo: August 21, 2017
- Android 7 Nougat: August 22, 2016
So everything is possible between the beginning of August and the end of September. The course of the last few years would point more to the beginning of September. While Android 7, 8 and 9 were released on a Monday, Android 10 and Android 11 were released on a Tuesday, and Android 12 again on a Monday. Also this year it will probably be the case that Android 13 will be released before the next Pixel smartphone – in this case, the Pixel 7.